


Surrender Your Trappings

by eff_reality



Category: Star Trek RPF
Genre: M/M, New York City
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-13
Updated: 2013-10-13
Packaged: 2017-12-29 08:35:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1003277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eff_reality/pseuds/eff_reality
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chris and Zach go to a variety show together in NYC, and, much to Zach's surprise, Chris is turned on by one of the dancers.  Based on actual sightings of them at said variety show earlier this year.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Surrender Your Trappings

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SuedeScripture](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SuedeScripture/gifts).



It never ceases to amaze Zach how even with the relentless assault of noise in the city, he can still manage to find peace. He can actually hear the rush of smoke as it exits his lungs, almost echoing in the narrow cobblestone alley just down the block from his destination, _their_ destination. Perhaps the reason he never quite gets over New York is that it allows for so many things at once: madness and quietude, nature and commerce, fame and anonymity, pure connection and utter loneliness. 

Just outside this alley and down the block is a line of both mundane and questionable characters waiting to be let past the velvet rope, chattering and smoking and cackling and shaking their bracelets. In this alley, though, it’s quiet enough to hear Chris’ sharp little whistle.

Zach spins from the brick wall (off of which he’d been reading graffiti in Sharpie), and it’s a flash of Chris’ smiling face before he’s pulled into one of his rough-and-tumble hugs. 

“Caught you,” Chris murmurs directly into his ear, hot breath forcing another long stream of smoke out of Zach’s lungs over Chris’ shoulder.

“Indeed you did.” Zach pulls back, holding him at arm’s length to get a better look at him, though it’s only been some weeks. He pushes a thumb through Chris’ beard, making him duck his head and smile.

Chris raises an eyebrow, glancing at the cigarette suspended between Zach’s long fingers just to his left. “Relapsing, are we?” he teases before leaning awkwardly in to take a couple of drags himself. 

“I don’t know,” Zach muses, watching Chris’ lips purse as they exhale. Chris never pulls the smoke all the way into his lungs, Zach knows, but he likes the taste of it on his tongue on a night out, especially if he’s drinking scotch. “It only seemed appropriate for tonight. Vices, vices everywhere.” Zach throws an arm around his shoulders and ushers him back out to the sidewalk, directing them to the club.

“Color me intrigued.” Chris squints a little under the flourescent lights. 

Zach smiles wide, looking his fill at his face again. He consistently forgets just how articulate Chris can be in private; in the exhausting blur of _Trek_ publicity, he rarely rises above the speaking level of a four year-old just awoken from a nap.

He laughs loudly as they approach, bending backward with the force of it, eyes scanning over the posters outside. “So these are the kind of joints you frequent when rebounding? I should have known.”

Zach shrugs mock-sheepishly as he finishes his cigarette, rubs it out, and tosses it in the trash. He nudges Chris with his shoulder. “Now you do, too.”

*

The decor is predictable: red velvet, gilded furniture backs, and everything candlelit. Zach’s never been here, but the place was listed as “mixed gay/straight” on nymag.com, so he’d figured it would be a fair bet for them. 

They’re ushered into a booth at the front, closed off and fairly secluded, tucked in the corner right at the lip of the stage. Chris settles in with a big sigh and orders a bottle of champagne for Zach and a double of Johnnie Walker Blue for himself, shooting a charming smile at the waitress as he does so. Zach takes the moment to look him over again, unobserved. Chris looks different in New York, more carefree, which is ironic considering the overall anxious pulse of the city in contrast with LA’s lazy burn. His eyes are bright but tired, not just from the flight; Zach is also still valiantly fighting residual fatigue from the press tour. There’s a long red mark near his ear, presumably earned from the crease of a pillow as he laid face down on a hotel bed for a quick nap. Zach resists the strong urge to thumb at that, too. 

Chris immediately grabs for the food menu at the edge of the table, brow furrowed intensely as he scans it. When the drinks arrive, he orders nearly one of every appetizer, and by curtain he’s happily shoveling an entire plate of stuffed mushrooms into his mouth. He meets Zach’s playfully judgmental gaze with his mouth full. “Sorry, I haven’t eaten since—”

“Ten minutes ago?” Chris shoots him a glare as he licks the juice from his fingers—and then reaches under the table to snap one of Zach’s suspenders with said fingers. Zach jumps in his seat and smacks Chris’ wrist with a giggle. “Jerk.”

As promised, the show is comprised of all manner of things, from traditional showgirls in black satin and fishnets to adult-themed magicians to male acrobats working with silks, a feat that always leaves Zach in awe over the human body. With food in his stomach, Chris’ energy level skyrockets. He’s bright, witty, and wicked—glowing, actually—with observations about just about everything, whispered fiercely into Zach’s ear with appropriately broad gestures.

When the lengthy burlesque portion begins, the tone of the show moves from sexy and stunning to bawdy, and Zach finds himself tipsy on the humor of the performers. One dancer, a curvy little redhead with hilarious facial expressions, spends most of the end of her number mugging directly at Chris, and eventually ends up draping her bright blue boa around his neck. Chris applauds particularly loudly for her and keeps the boa on indefinitely.

By the time the male dancers come out, the jig is up, so to speak, and it’s clear to both Zach and Chris that the performers at least know who they are. The men are the usual Chippendale’s fare, waxed and tanned twelve months out of the year, and they _love_ Zach, to Chris’ endless amusement. Zach just shakes his head and laughs, humoring them but in no way turned on by them, at all.

The mood of the entire room shifts again as the next performer emerges from stage left, no fanfare or wink-wink, clearly a member of the more “serious” sect of the burlesque troupe. He’s less orange and waxed, more genuinely androgynous, with a pretty face and limned eyes but also lean muscle covered in soft auburn hair. He wears a bowler hat, a waistcoat, a necktie, and what looks like the bottom half of a corset (there has to be a term for it, but Zach isn’t _that_ into fashion), all black. Extending from his hips is a garter belt that holds up sheer black stockings over coltish legs made even more defined by the high-heeled lace-up boots on which they strut. He looks, Zach thinks, like one of those paper dolls where the top or the bottom has been swapped with another.

The stage is relatively spare, just a leather recliner placed in the center across from an old boxy television that buzzes with grey static. A loud hum of music comes on over the loudspeakers, and the dancer immediately tips his hat off and sends it coasting like a frisbee onto a coat rack upstage right. He pushes a hand through his hair, mussing it in obvious frustration that grows as the music swells and the beat drops, stalking across the stage like a caged tiger.

The singer’s voice comes in, and Zach could probably recognize the 90s grunge song if the dancer hadn’t rendered it so beside the point. Besides, he’s too busy appreciating the guy’s commitment as a performer, though not too busy to notice Chris staring, transfixed, chin propped on clasped hands, elbows assisting a lean nearly all the way across their table. Zach’s attention darts from Chris’ eyes, dark and shining in the candlelight, to the dancer, who throws himself into the recliner—which spins—and tears at his necktie. Chris scoots closer to the edge of his seat in the booth.

As each garment is vindictively torn from the dancer’s body, the recliner spins and expands, and he is brought further from the beaten-down frustration of his entrance and closer to a personal nirvana. It’s a passionate rumination on the roles that we play in public and how debilitating they can be to maintain—and freeing to shed.

Zach’s thoughts are interrupted by Chris’ gritty voice in his ear. “Did you ever read Judith Butler?”

The question is so utterly unexpected, so out of place, that Zach pauses to regroup.

Chris turns to him nearly full-body, bracing one arm across the back of their booth and the other on the tabletop in front of Zach. “I know you took gender or queer theory of some kind in college; there’s no way you didn’t.”

“I did, yeah,” Zach answers absently, eyes trained on the stage.

“I’m not sure I ever believed in gender being truly performative, you know? Something we’re socialized into doing. I’m an actor; I should be able to buy it. But I certainly couldn’t pull it off.”

“See _Surrender Dorothy_ ,” Zach mutters, lifting his champagne flute to his mouth.

“Fuck off,” Chris says quickly, continuing with his point. “I just never _got it_ , you know? But this guy… he’s like Dr. Jeckyll and Mrs. Hyde. This perfect amalgam of masculine and feminine.”

Zach’s pleasantly fuzzy from the Brut, so it takes him a good long moment of watching Chris return his attention to said amalgam to realize that Chris is fucking turned on by his performance. This doesn’t speak to Chris’ sexuality so much as how much of a walking contradiction he is, which is one of the things Zach loves most about him. Even so, this is out of Zach’s zone of comfort when it comes to the canon of Chris Pine. There are gaps in his knowledge of Chris’ sexual history, large, strategic gaps, subtly reinforced by Zach himself, likely in the name of self-protection. 

By the end of the number, the dancer has rid himself everything but his more traditionally feminine accoutrements, which he wears in ecstasy, draped all over that leather recliner. Chris claps quietly but intently, licking his lips and watching the man’s legs as they pull him off the chair and erect to take his bow, shedding a few blue feathers all the while.

Zach suddenly recalls the monthly drag shows he did junior and senior year of college and wonders what Chris would think of them.

*

As they emerge from the side exit of the club—just as the final bows begin, to beat the crowds—Chris tilts his head back to get a look at the sky and throws half the boa over Zach’s shoulders, his arm following. They walk briskly, headed vaguely northwest on the wings of alcohol, totally silent until they’ve reached Washington Square Park. 

Zach had expected Chris to steer them down a sidestreet along the way; there are NYU students everywhere around here. That’s not exactly what he’s referring to, though, when he says, “You are full of surprises, Christopher.”

Chris’ eyes and smile are blindingly bright under the streetlights as he turns to him. “Yeah?”

Zach looks at him meaningfully. “Have you been withholding?”

They’ve parted by now, and Chris holds onto the ends of his boa with both hands as he saunters down the street, the way Zach imagines Mick Jagger might. As an observer of body language by trade, Zach knows Chris’ usual walk: he leads with his head (making him a “more cerebral” character), eyes down, shoulders slightly raised, guarded as he takes long, sure strides. This is wildly different.

“Not withholding,” he answers. “Just…” He stumbles a little, looking suddenly preoccupied. “Not withholding.”

Zach hesitates; even tipsy, his own desperately cerebral nature is never too far removed. “I have to say: I would _not_ have thought genderplay would be your thing.”

“Well, there’s a lot you still don’t know about me.” Chris shoots him an identically loaded look. He punctuates the statement by tossing one end of the boa over his shoulder with a flourish.

A laugh stutters out of Zach’s mouth. “Clearly.”

*

Chris’ hotel is all the way across town on the east side, but neither of them seems to find this worth mentioning at any point during their walk to Zach’s place, nor after they’ve stumbled through his front door together. As Chris crouches and enthusiastically greets the dogs through gritted teeth, Zach shrugs off his jacket and tosses it over the back of the sofa, then awkwardly works his arms out from underneath his suspenders, letting them hang over the sides of his thighs. 

“Want anything?” Zach tosses over his shoulder on his way down the hall to his bedroom. Chris responds as expected, with a gruff _No, man, thanks_ , grunting as he rises to his feet, following. 

The tails of Zach’s button-down have been pulled out from the waistband of his pants by the time Chris appears over the threshold with a soft if dazed smile. He waits until Zach has the shirt completely off before slipping the boa off his own shoulders and draping it over Zach’s bare ones. “Fit for a queen.” Chris claps his shoulderblade, fingers trailing over his skin as he maneuvers around him and perches on the edge of Zach’s bed. 

“It does feel more at home now,” Zach says sassily, stroking the two feathered halves that now hang over his chest. Chris’ eyes follow the movement. Zach reaches for the button on his fly, glancing up at him through a few strands of hair that fall in front of his eyes. “Sorry, these are kind of binding. I wanna change.”

Chris clucks his tongue in disappointment. “Not yet,” he whines, reaching out to smack Zach’s hands away. “I want more show. Put on a show for me.”

“You liked that last burlesque dancer, huh?” Zach doesn’t wait for a response. Instead, he whirls around to face his double closet, flinging one of the sliding doors open with more force than necessary. “You _have_ always been a sucker for stockings and heels, as long as I’ve known you.”

“Damn right,” Chris rumbles, his body reclining back on one elbow in Zach’s periphery, legs splayed wide. 

Zach can feel Chris’ eyes on him. He knows that Chris knows that he’s vulnerable when they’ve both been drinking, even a little—too vulnerable to deflect Chris’ flirtation, which is why Chris only flirts so blatantly when they’re both drunk. Zach takes the bait like a pro, shifting his weight from hip to hip as he pretends to contemplate his wardrobe. “I’m not sure I have anything appropriate for a show.” He smiles, rising on his toes a little to reach the shelf just above where his suits hang. “Exce-ept…” He hides his discovery from Chris until he’s fully spun around again, fixing it on top of his head with an exaggerated tilt over his eyes. 

Chris’ response is guttural. “ _Yes._ ” He claps and sits at attention. “Yes.”

“Like that?” Zach drawls, holding onto the crown of the fedora as he shifts his hips.

Chris’ eyes go a little wide, and a thick silence settles over their heads like a thundercloud. It’s odd, Zach realizes, totally unprecedented, the whole setup of tonight, the two of them in a cozy New York apartment together, and all alone, far from the eternally judgemental eyes of their industry peers. It provides a strange feeling of anonymity; they are the same, themselves, only not. Zach finds himself teetering on the edge of a version of himself he’s certain Chris has never seen.

“Well?” Zach stuffs his hands into his pockets, inching the waistband of his pants down just enough so the logo on his boxer briefs can be read. He tilts his head back to regard Chris from under the brim of his hat. “Sing something. I’m not going to dance without music.”

Chris screws up his pouty mouth and narrows his eyes, which still trail over Zach’s abdomen. Zach almost hopes he takes the opportunity to burst into the most ridiculous choice possible: Private Dancer or You Can Do it (Put Your Back Into It). But when Chris licks his lips and opens them, Zach goes still, the champagne suddenly freezing up in his veins. “ _Close the door_...” he starts, low and raspy. “ _Let me give you what you’ve been waiting for._ ”

Zach would ordinarily laugh—it’s Teddy fucking Pendergrass—except that Chris is totally serious, staring patiently into Zach’s eyes as his smoky voice carries the lyrics all too earnestly through the space between them. “ _Baby, I got so much love to give… and I wanna give it all to you._ ” He stops, raising his eyebrows and nodding vaguely to indicate that he’s still waiting for showtime. “Go on. I won’t stop, I promise.”

Zach’s persistent competitive streak, intrinsic to every actor and only amplified by Chris’ presence, kicks in, and he begins, stroking his hands over his chest, over the soft feathers of the boa, using it to anchor himself.

Chris’ voice isn’t far behind, though it’s markedly softer now. “ _Close the door… no need to worry no more._ ”

While it’s unspeakably odd to be performing for Chris like this, and not for the benefit of a room full of their friends, for laughs, it’s impressive how sincere the words sound in Chris’ mouth. They make Zach bold, slipping into those old moves his thirty-something body thought it had forgotten, gently rolling his hips until Chris is forced to clear his throat. Chris slowly, quietly leans back on his elbow again, apparently afraid any sudden moves will stop the show.

“ _Let’s bring this day to a pleasant end…_ ” Their eyes meet and Chris smiles then, Zach recognizing the unabashed adoration there, and if that doesn’t spike the intimacy of this whole scenario, Chris’ lyric swap does. “ _Boy, it’s me and you now._ ” Chris drums the fingers of his free hand over his thigh to indicate an instrumental pause.

Zach chances an approach then, suddenly inspired to keep Chris captive. He comes forward until he’s flush with the end of the bed, legs on either side of one of Chris’ knees, looking down at tufts of his wheat-gold hair until Chris tilts his head back, eyes navy as they stutter over Zach’s chest on the journey back to his face. Zach pushes Chris’ hair back from his forehead, watching his mouth fall open as he does so, then transfers the fedora to his head, flicking the brim back with his fingertips so Chris’ face is revealed to him again. 

“ _I’ve waited all day long… just to hold you in my arms_ ,” Chris half-sings half-speaks, obviously distracted by Zach’s hands as they work at his own dark hair, tugging playfully where it’s long and sliding over the sides of his neck, continuing down the length of his torso. “ _And it’s exactly like I thought it would be._ ” Zach isn’t dancing so much as molesting himself now, his improvised accompaniment predictably screeching to a halt in Chris’ throat.

Zach smirks and drapes his arms loosely over Chris’ shoulders. “I thought you promised not to stop.” 

Chris licks his lips. “Your eyes are incredible,” he says, as if in explanation.

“My _eyes_? That’s the feature you choose to single out right now? I should be offended.”

Chris gives a bashful shrug, avoiding said eyes. “They see everything. It’s pretty unnerving.”

“There’s plenty that they can’t see.” 

Chris looks up at him again, clearly understanding the unspoken confrontation in Zach’s remark. He sits up straight, his hat brushing Zach’s navel, and fingers the ends of the boa, hands hesitating before they climb up either end, using it to pull Zach down to him and press a soft, open kiss to his mouth. Chris sighs as Zach quickly responds, angling his head to deepen it and knocking the hat off of Chris’ head in the process, tongue slipping expertly between Chris’ plush, waiting lips, the burn of whiskey an added shock to his already overloaded system. 

Zach groans and pulls away, hands braced on Chris’ knees as his forehead falls to his shoulder. “What are we doing, here?”

“Please,” Chris whispers, hands cradling Zach’s cheeks, attempting to bring them together again. “I want it.” 

And although it’s been years of questions and missteps that have led them to this encounter, those simple words are all Zach needs to be convinced. He searches behind Chris’ back for the hat and sends it sailing across the room before pushing Chris down to the mattress with his mouth and stretching his body out over him. Chris arches up into him, his ankles hooking around Zach’s calves to twine them inexorably together. Their kisses are hot and languid, fueled by the buzz still humming through both their limbs, stripping them of any second guesses. Chris slithers his hands between them to undo his fly and push his jeans halfway down his thighs, Zach managing to drag his mouth away to tuck his chin down and get at least one look at him before Chris’ fingers are closing over his own bulge and squeezing. Zach exhales hard, surging forward, sandwiching Chris’ hand between them and making Chris shiver and moan with the friction of it. 

Chris slides his teeth over Zach’s bottom lip. “You too,” he growls, fumbling for the buttons of Zach’s fly and tearing them apart. Between the two of them, they work Zach’s dark, tight jeans all the way down to his knees, both groaning loud when their bare cocks push up against each other for the first time. 

Later on, Zach will think it’s a shame that it happened this way, the two of them not even fully undressed and barely any foreplay to speak of (though, to be fair, this last press tour accounted for ten times the workup needed to lead them here). He’ll lament not getting to play with Chris more, especially if this turns out to be both the first and the last time for them. But in the moment, it’s perfect, uncomplicated. 

When Zach plants his hands on either side of Chris’ head and rolls his hips in a rough, brutal circle, Chris echoes his thoughts with an eyeroll and a moan: “Feels so fucking good.” Zach fastens his teeth to Chris’ neck tendon and starts sucking a bruise there. “ _Ungh_.” Chris pulls at his hair, hard.

They don’t exchange many words beyond that, beyond _close_ and _fuck_ , except just when Chris is about to come, eyes wide and shimmering in his flushed face, lips bite-swollen and glistening, when Zach can’t help but grunt, “God, you are so fucking gorgeous, it’s infuriating.” Chris’ answering laugh turns into an unexpectedly high-pitched, breathy stutter of a moan as his cock throbs and starts pulsing between them, his fingers gripping Zach’s ass under the elastic of his briefs. 

Zach watches Chris’ face as he pants, coming down, the two ends of the boa gathered and pooled near his ears. He plucks the middle of it from around his own neck and whips it in the direction of the headboard, Chris tilting his head back to watch and giggling as it floats down, settling onto the pillows. Zach sits up in a straddle across Chris’ thighs, pushing his hand through the mess on his stomach and using it to fist himself until he comes with a gasp all over Chris’ chest. 

*

The next morning, Zach has a vague recollection of his own greedy touches throughout the night, rolling toward the middle of the bed to spoon Chris, wrapping his arms around his bare chest from behind, slipping his fingers through the hair on his thigh, pushing his face into his neck and even tonguing the purple mark he left there. There’s no shame, either; Chris had happily responded in kind to every affection, until dawn, when Zach experienced somnolent flashes of him sitting up in bed, messy hair silhouetted by the morning light through the window as he pulled his shirt back over his head, then gathering his wallet and keys off the top of the armoire and stuffing them in the pockets of his jeans. 

Zach had still been half-asleep when Chris leaned over him to brush a goodbye kiss over his mouth. “Hey. I’m out.” He’d kissed him again, firmer, perhaps to make sure Zach remembered it. 

There’s a note waiting for Zach on his nightstand when he throws his heavy legs over the side of the bed. Like Chris, it’s verbose and absurd and generous, using both medieval language and contemporary colloquialisms to describe their night together. It ends with, “I can’t believe I managed to finally seduce you with the baby-making stylings of Teddy. Please accept this boa as a token of my embarrassment. - C” The feathered beast is curled up like its namesake around the base of Zach’s lamp.

A text soon follows to make sure that Zach received the letter and to reiterate that Chris is open to talking about the night before when he gets home, if Zach wants to, of course. 

_such a gentleman_ , Zach replies with a smile. _i should have known._

He has the day off, so he spends it cleaning his apartment, laundering the duvet and bedsheets, of course, and spending quality time with “the kids,” as he refers to his dogs.

It’s dusk and he’s just finished re-making the bed when Chris calls. Zach answers with a loaded sigh. “Hey.” Chris laughs, sounding bright and sweet but far away. 

“You ready?” Chris asks, suddenly serious too.

Zach’s eyes fall on the nearest bedpost, where the fedora now sits, cocked charmingly askew over the boa, wound tight to look like an autumn scarf. “Yep.”


End file.
